White spaces for innovation in tertiary education: Australian public provider perspectives

ABSTRACT

Over the last twenty years, tertiary education in Australia has radically changed. Major growth in the sector and federal government policy and funding changes have resulted in an increase of providers and a diversification of the quality of education available on the market, particularly in vocational education. Although change presents insecurity and ambiguity for education providers, it also presents an opportunity for proactive and adaptable providers to transform and disrupt the sector by designing an innovative value creation strategy to diversify or target their offering. To understand the current landscape, this paper explores the business models of 50 Australian tertiary education providers and groups these into seven business model typologies. Focusing on public vocational education providers, the paper identifies the ability of their current business model to meet skills-based gaps in the future, including their future customers, and states potential ‘white space’ opportunities for innovation.

KEYWORDS:

• Tertiary education
• vocational education
• design innovation
• business models
• content analysis

Acknowledgments

This funded research was based on a project with TAFE NSW from June-October 2018. The authors also wish to thank previous and current members of the Design Innovation Research Group for their support and contribution to ideas discussed during the development of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Genevieve Mosely

Genevieve Mosely is a Research Associate and Ph.D. candidate in the Design Innovation Research Group at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on design education as well as the implementation of design thinking in diverse, interdisciplinary contexts to help capture value through better understanding users and their needs.

Cara Wrigley

Professor Cara Wrigley is Director of the Design Innovation Research Group, leading a team of researchers on projects spanning healthcare, science, business, education and Defence. She is the Jericho Chair of Design Innovation embedded inside the Royal Australian Air Force.

Tom Key

Tom Key is the General Manager, Future & Innovation at TAFE NSW. Tom leads a multi-disciplinary team that focuses on the measurement, design, testing and implementing of programs that innovate and improve the experience of all customers of TAFE NSW: industry, organisations and students.